‘Humanitarian action responds to people’s need, wherever they are,’ the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) in the Occupied Palestinian Territory proclaimed in May, amid the full-scale Israeli blockade of aid into Gaza. ‘Our teams remain in Gaza, ready to again scale up the delivery of critical supplies and services… We have significant stocks ready to enter as soon as the blockade is lifted. We urge world leaders to make it happen.’
It would all be very well – if the HCT was simply a non-governmental organization campaigning for justice for Palestinians. But it is instead a ‘strategic decision-making forum’ led by Sarah Poole, the United Nations’ Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory.1 Eighty years after the UN pledged to ‘save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’, its role in the world’s bloodiest war has been reduced to mere punditry.
